Returning troops more at risk of car accidents

Jerry Hirsch
April 25, 2012

A study has found that soldiers have trouble readjusting to traffic.

Members of the United States military — especially enlisted troops in the Army and Marines — were significantly more likely to cause car accidents within six months of returning from deployment, according to a study by USAA Property and & Casualty Insurance Group, a major insurer for military families.

These veterans probably are engaging in survival driving habits for a war zone, such as not stopping in traffic, driving fast and making sudden, unpredictable turns, experts say. But those driving practices create havoc back in the United States.

The insurance company looked at the driving record for each member in the study for the six months prior to deployment and then at their experience after returning to the US. The three-year study started in January 2007 and included 158,000 troops who had 171,000 deployments to various overseas locations.

USAA found a 13 per cent increase in at-fault accidents for troops within the first six months of returning from deployment.

The increase in at-fault accidents was greatest for Army veterans, whose rate increased 23 per cent, followed by Marines at 12.5 per cent, Navy veterans at 3 per cent and Air Force veterans at 2 per cent.

Officers had far lower accident rates than enlisted troops, and drivers younger than 22 were more prone to crashes than older members of the military.USAA did not detect any elevation in fatal accidents.

While it’s long been suspected that veterans returning from war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan were more likely to be in an accident, ‘‘this finally provides some empirical information about whether this happens and what the magnitude of the increase is,’’ says Todd Rockwood, a professor of public health at the University of Minnesota.

Military training is part of the equation, Rockwood says.

‘‘Things like obeying traffic signals and coming to a full and complete stop - those aren’t good in a war zone,’’ Rockwood said. ‘‘Moving targets are harder to hit.’’

Retired US Army Master Sgt Todd Nelson knows what Rockwood is talking about. He was injured when a small car carrying explosives his vehicle in Afghanistan in 2007. Nelson lost an eye and suffered horrific burns to his head and arm requiring skin grafts.

When he returned home, Nelson says, ‘‘I didn’t like vehicles being too close to me and I didn’t like to drive the same speed as others ... I didn’t want to let people merge in. That manifested itself in aggressive driving.’’ Bradley Hammond, who left the Army after serving in Iraq in 2006 and is now unemployed, said his wife still hates being a passenger in their car when he drives.

‘‘I want to drive as close to the middle as I can because subconsciously if I see a box or some trash on the side of the road I am thinking it will explode,’’ says Hammond.

‘‘Sometimes I get a feeling someone is following me and I just turn. Something will set me off.’’

Hammond says the US military goes to great effort teaching troops how to drive in war zones and should do more to recondition personnel to drive normally in civilian situations when they return home.

Other research has found that veterans returning from a war zone get nervous driving near overpasses, congested areas and roadside anomalies that most drivers wouldn’t notice.

‘‘We might see a pothole repair and think nothing of it, but they might see it as an area to avoid because it might be where an IED is buried,’’ Rockwood says.

Erica Stern, also at the University of Minnesota, studied the driving habits of veterans and in one survey found that 30 per cent were told they drove dangerously after returning from deployment.

Half said they become anxious when other cars approach quickly or when they get boxed in on the road, while 20 per cent said they were anxious when driving in general.